Coup d'etat? Senior official says re: Afghanistan: "We don't have an exit strategy."

Hasn't President Obama said we are leaving in 2011 or 2014 or something like that?

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/afgh-n26.shtml

Pentagon issues grim review of Afghanistan war
By Bill Van Auken
26 November 2010

Violence has reached record levels in Afghanistan, and the resistance to the US-led occupation is more widespread than ever, according to a report issued by the Pentagon.

The semiannual report, required by Congress, provides a grim assessment of the US war, now in its tenth year, giving the lie to rosy public statements issued by the Obama administration and senior military commanders.

The report, released this week, is titled, “Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan,” but its contents suggest that in doubling the number of US troops deployed in Afghanistan since taking office, President Barack Obama has only created a deeper quagmire for the US military.

<edit>

Asked by a reporter about the US “exit strategy” for Afghanistan, a senior official briefing the media on the Pentagon report bristled. “We don’t have an exit strategy,” he said. “We have a transition strategy. The US commitment to Afghanistan is continuing, enduring, and long-lasting.”

In other words, the ruling establishment and its military have no intention of leaving Afghanistan. They are determined to continue their bloody efforts to annihilate the Afghan resistance in order to secure Washington’s control of the country and further US designs on establishing hegemony in the oil-rich and strategically vital region of Central Asia.

Now, how willing are you to go to that next logical step: That for the goal of "establishing hegemony in the oil-rich and strategically vital region of Central Asia," Bush/Cheney/Carlyle Group/Halliburton/Etc. would have done ANYTHING?

A. NY. THING. (And now that I see my visual pun there,.....)

and apparently i voted for a liar. thats going to be a problem next campaign

Using an undisclosed reporters undisclosed senior official and then going on to say "in other words" doesn't seem to add much fact to the piece. It's simply a tool to pass on their own views.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2010/11/mil-101123-dod02.htm

Presenter: Senior Defense and State Officials November 26, 2010
DOD Background Briefing with Senior Officials at the Pentagon

<edit>

Q I want to ask to talk a little bit more about the effort to build up the civilian capacity that seems to be the key component in the U.S. exit strategy. And in the summer, it seemed like there was a little bit of the U.S. was just kind of running in place. While the military could do its job, the effort to build up the civilian capacity was really stalled. How did it -- how has it progressed throughout this period and then since then?

SR. DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Let me just push back against one word you used -- no, two words you used -- was "exit strategy." We don't have an exit strategy. We have a transition strategy. The U.S. commitment to Afghanistan is continuing, enduring and long-lasting. There is no exit strategy.

more...

<snip> On Wednesday, though, "Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said there's been no change in policy. 'The president has been crystal clear that we will begin drawing down troops in July of 2011. There is absolutely no change to that policy,' Vietor said in a statement."

http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9986-news-a-comment-pentagon-seeking-to-overturn-obamas-july-2011-afghan-drawdown-date.html

nt

Lots of nameless officials out there and none of them are in charge.

April 2005.

---

Let me just say something about how to withdraw. This is my plan. Hey, if Tom Hayden is qualified to write up exit strategies, why not an old grunt like me, eh?

The Plan: The National Command Authority orders all US forces redeployed out of Iraq within one month and out of the theater in two months. Any commander that fails to meet the deadline will be summarily relieved, and replaced with a commander that will thereby be placed on a shorter timeline. I can promise anyone who has no experience of the military that this is perfectly feasible, and that with that kind of command emphasis, the mission can and will be accomplished.

Here, of course, is where we discern the liberal pre-occupation (pun intended) with "overseeing" disengagement and other such poppycock. Oh Gasp! they will delcare. What then will become of these simple-minded brown people who want nothing more than to drink each other's blood? At the end of the day, a liberal can be every bit as much the white nationalist as any rock-ribbed Republican Confederate. They really believe that the United States is the beacon of civilization because we have sitcoms and theme parks, and that the brutality of the US military occupation is an aberration -- the antithesis of our true nature. Under all this verbiage is plain, Anglo-American Kiplingesque white supremacy. Remember the "white man's burden to civilize the dark races?"

Tom, here is a delivery from the cluetrain. Iraqis were doing algebra and astronomy when some of our European anscestors still believed that a bath would leave you vulnerable to evil spirits -- number one clue. Having smart bombs doesn't make you smarter. It just makes you meaner. Get over your chauvinist self. Number two clue -- the primary catalyst for the intensifying violence in Iraq right now is... the US military presence. Tom, you say this yourself later on in your proposal, which only makes this protracted and abstracted "disengagement" thing all the more remarkable.

http://www.counterpunch.org/goff08252005.html

stupid stupid America.

Glad to see the semantics war is a success anyway. :sarcasm:

And, there will be bookshelves full of books describing how the American Empire fell in Afghanistan.